


Where Are We? (The Nothing and Goodbyes Remix)

by lily_lovely



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Community: remix_redux, Gen, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-12
Updated: 2010-05-12
Packaged: 2017-10-09 10:18:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lily_lovely/pseuds/lily_lovely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where do you think he is?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Are We? (The Nothing and Goodbyes Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Angearia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angearia/gifts).
  * Inspired by [No Remains Save Hope](https://archiveofourown.org/works/71303) by [Angearia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angearia/pseuds/Angearia). 



> Thanks to my beta deird1. Hope you enjoy!

_"Where do you think he is?" _

_"Hell? Heaven? I dunno."_

*

You feel them above you. It feels like whispers, like tentative tendrils, like ghosts of sound.

You're not here. You should be finished. You are.

You can feel them above you, and you wonder if this is hell.

*

"It was a good fight. You should have seen him–he had a fire in him, raging, like." He sighs, or it could just be a smoky exhale. "We all did."

*

It's funny, the things you remember here.

Here, inside your empty coffin, but not—you're stuck inside the soil. Dust to dust, and for you, it's so literal it makes you want eyes to roll.

You want a lot of things.

But no, that's not how to think.

You remember the bitter aftertaste of coffee. You remember one summer evening in Barcelona, and how loud the crickets were. You remember kissing her, and how it felt, but not which her you're remembering.

You remember everything but how to deal with this—how to be so uncertain and unfinished and alone.

*

"I remember how safe I felt around Angel. Like…nothing could touch me. Ever." She rubs her hands up and down her arms. "I guess that's stupid."

She twists her neck to the side and curls a hand around it, like a grasping, like a grieving, like a claw.

"I've never been safe."

He slides one tentative hand around her shoulder.

He almost says something, but there's nothing.

*

Hell's almost worse this time.

There was a rhythm to it before; a cadence of suffering. And it was so expected, so clichéd, that it made sense.

But being trapped in this nothingness—no movement, no voice—and feeling like you can almost reach them, but never quite getting there?

You wish you'd just hurry up and go insane.

*

The silence between them seems long and fluid—a stream, blood through a vein.

Blood—he almost laughs at that, but he's not sure he can.

It's too quiet, anyway. One of those moments where you keep almost saying something, something important—but the moment just continues on, and you never do.

From Buffy's sideways glances and tiny catches of breath, she probably feels the same way.

He leans against a headstone, and lights a cigarette with shaking hands.

There's nothing he could say to her, anyway.

*

You wonder what they're saying. You need to know, suddenly, like it's the only thing that's mattered, ever, like you'll give up anything, any chance at anything, if you could know just one word.

You want to know who they are, and how they came here, and if they know you, and if they're really there, standing on your grave, alive and breathing, and if they miss you, and if they knew you, and what they're saying.

You strain and strain but there's no ears, no brain, it's gone, you're nothing.

You ache with a need to howl your suffering to the worms and soil, but you can't. There's nothing.

*

"I remember…"

He stops and chuckles.

"…a lot of things. God, I remember so much, and now it could all just go away—poof, I forget what he looked like, or the sound of his voice, you know?"

He scuffs his boot on the stone, not quite able to look at the '1753' he knows is printed there.

"I've known him most of my life, and even if we weren't around each other, I could feel him. I knew he was out there, existing, somewhere in the world, still being my enemy or my friend or my—drinking buddy, whatever. Even when he was off in hell, even when _I_ was dead, I felt him. I knew we weren't finished."

Spike's eyes turn glazed and far away, like he's searching for Angel in the caverns of his mind, reading the echoes of his words like sonar.

"But now I guess we are. And I have no idea what to do with myself."

*

No.

This isn't how you're going to spend your eternity, if that's how it's really going to work out.  
How did this happen? Really.

You expected to die, you expected to go out with a blaze of glory and righteous heroism, but limbo wasn't in the bargain.   
Hades, maybe, because you were never quite sure just how many lives you had to save before the whole mass murder thing got canceled out, but not this.

This isn't the kind of fate you ever thought you'd be consigned to. It burns, like messy car exhaust, like a gritty night followed by a harsher morning. It's just not right.

You're a champion. You _matter_.

Or you did.

Didn't you?

*

Buffy picks at a corner of the gravestone—chip, chip, he's fading away.

"I thought I knew him. So well, like he was the only person I'd ever known before. And now I don't know anything, and it just _hurts_ like—God. This sucks."

He laughs in a sudden rush of air, like hearing it put that simply drains something out of him. "Yeah. It really does."

"Wonder if we could put that in the obituary? 'Vampire Dead, Still Sucking.'"

They look at each other and burst out laughing.

*

You've only gotten to 94 bottles of beer on the wall when you feel tension start to build in you—and it's not boredom.   
It's like a giant hand is squeezing all the unnecessary air out of your nonexistent lungs.

Suddenly it all pops—cork from a champagne bottle, whoosh bang boom.

Buffy?

*

"What do you think he'd make of us? Giggling and howling like a couple of school kids." Spike lets out a final gaspy laugh, wiping at his face.

"He'd probably pout and tell us we aren't funny."

"Ah, but that's not what matters. What matters is…"

"…maybe he'd be proud of us?"

"I was going to say that my liquor cabinet's fully stocked and ready for us to drown our sorrows, but yours works too."

She smiles. "Can we just sit here awhile? I'm not feeling so drowny right now. More peaceful."

He looks at her, and she gets that feeling, the _we are almost the exact same person_ feeling where he's looking at her soul, and she knows they'll be okay.

"Whatever you say, love."

*

You can see them. You can hear them and oh, God, you're out!

And it's _them_. Spike and Buffy. Leaning against a tree, holding hands.

Looking the right amount of mournful, but like they'll be alright.

And that's…okay. You're okay with it.

You wish you could touch her or say something or have one final moment, but that's not in the cards. That's not what matters—it's all over, and you are finished. This is the final moment.

You feel yourself start to move.

You don't know where you're going, but you're free.

*

_"Liar. You think he's in hell." _

_"Well, yeah. I think he's in hell. But I hope he's in heaven."_


End file.
